Budgeting Topics

BUILDING YOUR BUDGETS

Building a budget is not a task for the feint of heart. It's a grueling process wherein one needs to think of every item. In this respect, when I say "every item", I'd like to be clear that I mean to say all the gear, all the services, all the fees and all the crew for the show... everyone. When you do the script breakdown, you are thinking in your minds'-eye how the project will look on screen and stepping back and pulling out all the elements. Budgeting is the step where you take each of those elements and step back one bit further and determine what it will take logistically and, important for this step, financially to do.

In this section, you will find various aspects of building a budget, from theory to practice. Every line in your budget should mean something, have a purpose for being there and be thought about how it relates to other things in the production plan and elsewhere in the budget.

You will find that often decreasing or increasing one line item will affect one or more other line items in the budget. Planning now to not bring your Assistant Propmaster to location? Be sure to change the BTL Travel & Living hotels, flights, car & per diem. Also, adjust any rebate to reflect you are now hiring someone in-state. Lastly, consider that this local now brings his own props van, which now affects lines in transportation vehicles. That truck is also now not a 5-ton, but a normal van. Perhaps adjust fuel use too. Downgrading the size of the truck also affects the rate at which you pay the driver in that new vehicle class. Get the idea? There's lots to think about.